Americans Are Ready to Trash ESG

By
E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy
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You watched as America’s largest corporations rushed to adopt “woke” policies in order to meet the standards for inclusion in ESG (environmental, social, and governance) funds. These companies’ CEOs didn’t want to miss out on the craze that BlackRock and others were selling because exclusion from the ESG funds would mean potentially lower stock prices, and for the CEOs and other executives who are paid mostly in options, lower incomes. Now, investors and customers are finally pushing back. After a major outcry by its customers and investors, Deere & Co. has eliminated its DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) efforts. Fox News’s Lindsay Kornick reports:

John Deere announced it will be scuttling nearly all its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) polices in favor of a quality-based workplace.

The major tractor company released a statement on its X account Tuesday saying that it will commit to prioritizing quality and customer trust over DEI initiatives.

“Our customers’ trust and confidence in us are of the utmost importance to everyone at John Deere. We fully intend to earn it every day and in every way we can,” the post read, along with a full statement.


Their efforts include pledging the company “will no longer participate in or support external social or cultural awareness parades, festivals or events,” will be “auditing all company-mandated training materials and policies to ensure the absence of socially motivated messages” and “reaffirming within the business that the existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification have never been and are not company policy.”

In addition, the statement said that employee resource groups “will exclusively be focused on professional development, networking, mentoring and supporting talent recruitment efforts.”

The statement came about a week after filmmaker Robby Starbuck released a video report on a number of woke policies at John Deere, saying he found the company was “funding a pride event for kids as young as 3,” asking employees to “list their ‘preferred pronouns’ on all communications,” promoting a “United for Equity” program among accounting and finance teams and forming “LGBTQ & race-based identity groups at corporate.”

While John Deere did not reference the report directly, the company’s statement emphasized its committment to listening and responding to customer feedback.

“To best serve our customers and employees, Deere is always listening to feedback and looking for opportunities to improve. That’s why we consistently prioritize internal policies that more closely align our business strategy to meet the needs of our customers,” the statement read.

Action Line: Your Survival Guy has been warning for years about the dangers of ESG, both in investing and politics. ESG efforts simply don’t combine well with the fiduciary duty owed to investors by money managers and executives of publicly traded corporations. When you want to talk about your investments to a fiduciary by law, I’m here. In the meantime, click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.

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P.S. The backlash to ESG has been building to this point, read more about it here:

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